Raymund
Though he wears his age well, he wears it all the same, with the deep creases and greying hair that make up the Warrior's appearance evidence of nearly half a lifetime spent in service of the Faith. The once-knight stands at 5'11'', with chestplate and helmet decorated with passages from the Warrior's Book. Biography: Born to a bricklayer and his wife in Mistwood Town, the young Raymund was orphaned at the age of six after a plague brought by passing merchants claimed both of his parents. The child was brought in by Ser Pearse, a hedge knight in service of the Warrior's Sons, who took on the orphan as a squire. 257 AA Knighthood At the age of 14, Raymund joined Ser Pearse and four other Warrior's Sons on a mission: members of the Cult of Starry Wisdom had taken up refuge in the Rainwood, and, led by a Lyseni named Belo, had started to kidnap travelers as sacrificial offerings to the night sky. The hedge knight had been tipped off to the cult's activities by the sister of one of it's members, who had reported that her brother was "in league with the black stone" and that Belo had led them to an area known as Child's Gift, a clearing in the Rainwood surrounded by particularly thick forest that was supposedly the favored meeting place between a local lord and his child of the forest lover in the years before Aegon's Attempt. During the cult's morning prayers to the rising sun, the Sons attacked, charging the disorganized cultists. When Ser Pearse was struck in the shoulder by a stray arrow and unable to continue, Raymund picked up his shield and pressed the attack, with the 14 year old slaying both the Lyseni cult leader and the wounded brother of the informant in the final moments of the battle. He was knighted thereafter as Ser Raymund of Child's Gift, named for the clearing where the cult had been based. 265 AA Warrior's Sons Having proven himself as a battle-ready warrior (Vitality), Ser Raymund served as a member of the Oldtown chapter of the Warrior's Sons, a holy order composed of hedge knights, second sons, and various zealots in service of the Faith of the Seven, from his knighting in 245 AA until he was named Avatar of the Warrior in 291 AA. He developed a close relation with the Poor Fellows that roamed the lands, with Raymund having been baseborn himself, and led the Swords and Stars in defense of the Faith. 265AA-291AA The Reaving of Oldtown 291 AA To Save What Is Sacred As the city burned around them, the aging Ser Pearse and his former squire volunteered to lead a group of ten Poor Fellows to help secure the various religious texts stored within the Citadel's libraries from the Ironborn invaders. What was initially seen as a suicide mission had turned out to be a saving grace in disguise: while the two knights fought from room to room within the ancient halls, the rest of their chapter had made a final stand at the steps of the Starry Sept to allow the High Septon time to evacuate, with few survivors. The group's first contact with the enemy did not go well: they arrived to find a group of reavers larger than their own having already begun to loot the Scribe's Hearth, with the Ironborn making quick work of the ill-equipped Poor Fellows in the ensuing fray. The remnants of Raymund's group retreated inwards, fighting the invaders from hallway to hallway as they did so. Death was plentiful that night. In the Hall of Historical Documentation, an Ironborn had nearly ended Raymund's life, the reaver's sword coming an inch from the hedge knight's heart before the knight parried and returned with a stab to the raider's abdomen. (Ambidextrous.) A man bearing the skeletal hand of House Drumm had nearly caved in Raymund's head with an axe while the two groups fought in the Administrative Wing, only to be stabbed through the back of the throat by Ser Pearse. The poorly-equipped fanatics fell one by one as the group moved: the screams of Keath, a farmer's son from the lands near Honeyholt, echoed through the empty halls connecting the main library from the dormitories, his ribcage being stomped in by reavers. Lyle and Alon, brothers born and raised in Oldtown, had died holding the stone bridge that connected the Halls of Agricultural Learnings with Peremore's Study. Lyrra, a sellsword from Braavos that had found faith, had her throat cut in two by an axe as she ran to join the two knights. Ser Pearse and Raymund, now the last survivors, had attempted to barricade themselves within the Chambers of Higher Learning by pushing over one of the massive bookcases that made up the library over the entrance. The lead pursuer, eager to finish the fight, had ran ahead of his group only to be crushed by the bookshelf as it fell on him with a sickening crunch. The pained cries of the Ironborn trapped underneath would mix with the sounds of chaos outside, with the man alternating between pleas for mercy and threats of drowning the two hedge knights alive on the nearby shores. The knight and former squire stood, taking advantage of this temporary reprieve to catch their breaths as the man continued to beg and curse. Even Raymund felt a tinge of pity for the man: his spine had certainly shattered under the weight of a thousand dusty tomes, the knight figured, and his death would be a slow one, bleeding out on the cold stone floors of the Citadel. "Should we?" "What?" replied Pearse in between labored breaths. "You can't mean it, Raymund. He gets what he deserves." "Look at him," said Raymund, gesturing to the reaver as he futilely tried to push the bookcase off of him. "It's over." "Fi--" Pearse began, but was stopped: in their focus on the crippled Ironborn, another reaver, long and lean-limbed, had slipped through the narrow crack left between the bookcase and the doorway, embedding a throwing axe in the back of Ser Pearse's skull. "Pearse!" Raymund called out, but it was too late: the man that had saved the young orphan from a life of abject misery slumped to the floor a lifeless husk, with his killer retrieving a sword from his scabbard as he approached the hedge knight. Raymund and the reaver would fight throughout the building, up staircases and down hallways as the city outside burned. A throwing axe had grazed the side of the native of Mistwood Town's head, narrowly avoiding his femoral artery as it clipped the bottom of Raymund's left earlobe. The two continued their duel, each parrying the other's attacks as they walked up the stairs leading to the Archmaester's Office. Their swords would lock as they reached the landing, making eye contact as steel grated against iron: the reaver was blind in one eye, a thick layer of scar tissue formed around his milk-white retina that seemed to stare directly into the hedge knight's core. He attempted to overpower the invader, but instead the reaver spit in his face, causing Raymund to drop his sword as he reeled. Returning with a kick to the man's groin, the knight would buy himself space as he ran into the Archmaester of the Higher Mysteries' office. As the reaver turned the corner into the room, Raymund slammed the door on his face, and, with a loud crack, the raider dropped his sword to clutch at his bleeding nose. Sensing an opportunity, the Warrior's Son advanced, wrapping the ceremonial chain of the Archmaester of Higher Mysteries around the man's neck and pulling. The Higher Mysteries The dull roar of the chaos occurring outside had been a constant presence during Raymund's flight through the Citadel, but here, in the Archmaester's chambers, no sound penetrated: it was only the pained gasps for air of the reaver, barely audible, as the links of copper and iron tightened around the man's neck that punctuated the silence. The single ring of Valyrian steel shined brilliantly in the candelight as it dug into the invader's neck, a ring of blood beginning to form at the reaver's larynx. He grasped at his throat, trying to pull himself free of the the chain, clawing desperately at Raymund's face as he did so, the Ironborn's salt-stained fingernails drawing blood. Hiis legs kicked frantically against the Archmaester's desk, body spasming in it's final moments as the two sat in that cold, quiet room. After what felt like an eternity, the man finally went still, and Raymund stood. Shield of the Faithful To Raymund's surprise, he and the reaver had not been alone: as he began to tie together the spare robes of the Archmaester to prepare a makeshift rope, he heard a groan: Acolyte Yondel, a third son of minor nobility with only two links to his name, had taken refuge in the room after being stabbed in the gut by an Ironborn. Though Raymund would later find out that Yondel had returned to the Citadel after being evacuated to retrieve his meager coinpurse, the man was clearly unable to answer the knight's questions in his current state, and so Raymund gave him the benefit of the doubt. A year after the Battle of Oldtown, Acolyte Yondel would pen a work titled An Incomplete Account of the Ironborn Assault of Oldtown of 292 AA, which included an eyewitness account of the hedge knight's final moments with the reaver. The work became popular with the Poor Fellows and Divisionist septons alike, who sometimes read it to crowds of listeners as an example of the values of the High Incarnates. The New Doctrine With the wounded acolyte slung over his shoulder, Ser Raymund would make his escape through the window, using his makeshift rope to begin his descent. Handing off Acolyte Yondel to a septa that wandered the streets that night, her white robes stained red with the blood of the fallen, for healing, Raymund would make his way through the streets, traveling through abandoned building as not to be spotted by the roving bands of reavers, and made his way to a group of survivors led by Arthur Tyrell, the two helping to defend as the remaining vestiges of the city were evacuated. He had failed in his mission: the religious texts he had been sent to retrieve had been lost alongside the rest of his group and yet, as he heard word of what had happened to his fellow Warrior's Sons in order to save the fleeing High Septon, he wondered if those documents had not been lost for a reason: they had largely been doctrine, dictated by one clergy member to another over centuries and passed as fact, but it was that same clergy that had fled Oldtown in the wake of the Ironborn, the knight realized. It was those same adherents to these man-made edicts that had refused to return to Oldtown in the years after the attack, leaving the faithful of the Reach to fend for themselves. Perhaps, Raymund wondered, if it was time for new doctrine. The Seven Stars Above It was at a hastily assembled camp for the evacuated survivors that Septon Kennet had approached Raymund: word of the hedge knight's deeds during that fateful night had spread quickly throughout the survivors, and he claimed that the spirit of the Warrior lived through him. When the Septon suggested that Raymund be named Avatar of the Warrior, he had agreed without hesitation: it was faith, not doctrine, that had saved him in the Citadel and it was the gods, not the fleeing clergy, that had remained in the Reach when it's people needed it the most. And it would be him, alongside his fellow High Incarnates, that would rebuild the Reach. And it would be the people, not kings nor the corrupt Most Devout, that the Faith would serve, if he had his way. With a rushed ceremony by the septon, Ser Raymund of Child's Gift would relinquish all claims to his previous life and instead become the Avatar of the Warrior, a living vessel of the god's will on Planetos. Timeline: * 251 AA: Raymund is born. * 257 AA: Raymund's parents both pass from sickness; the orphan is taken on by Ser Pearse of the Warrior's Sons as a squire. * 265 AA: Raymund becomes Ser Raymund of Child's Gift after slaying a cult leader in the Rainwood. * 265 AA-291 AA: Ser Raymund of Child's Gift serves with the Oldtown chapter of the Warrior's Sons. * 291 AA: Ser Raymund helps to rally the defenders of Oldtown and evacuate survivors. Supporting Characters: * Colren – ex-barber Poor Fellow – Archetype: Medic * Grenn – Poor Fellow – Archetype: Navigator * Lerris – Poor Fellow, Warrior's Squire – Archetype: Warrior (Swords) * Septon Kirth – Septon – Archetype: Zealot (Divisionism) Misc Child's Gift Child's Gift is the name given to a clearing within the Rainwood by locals. A clearing surrounded by a wall of particularly thick vegetation, Child's Gift has lush, green grass and a shallow pond, where the rainfall that gives the forest it's name accumulates. According to local legend, the clearing was made by a Child of the Forest, who used the magic of her people to create a private place for her and her human lover, purportedly the heir of a local lord, to meet in the centuries before Aegon's Attempt. However, no evidence exists to support this claim, and maesters view it as little more than an entertaining bedtime story for children. In 265 AA, a Lyseni by the name of Belo led a cult dedicated to the Church of Starry Wisdom out of Child's Gift. Belo and his followers were all slain by the Warrior's Sons, led by Ser Pearse, later that year. Category:Reachman Category:The Faith of the Seven Category:Divisionist